Hughes Electronics Corporation provides digital direct broadcast systems such as DIRECTV® and DIRECPC® that broadcast via satellite, television programs and information or computer applications, respectively. DIRECTV® broadcasts television programming in a similar fashion to that of terrestrial television. DIRECPC® subscribers place requests that are queued up and broadcasted, to the subscriber's computer. DIRECPC services on-demand requests. DIRECTV® and DIRECPC® incorporate encryption in addressing for applications such as on-demand requests. These systems provide access control where users make selection decisions in advance of the content being broadcast.
Another type of system, described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,790,935, issued to the present assignee, is a virtual on-demand digital information delivery system. In this system, a central distribution server directs a variety of programs to various users based upon a filtering predictive scheme located at the subscriber's local storage. During off peak hours various programs are downloaded to the subscriber's local storage.
This invention improves upon the previous patent by providing caching of electronic content anytime. Another aspect of the invention is a novel E-Commerce Management System.